THEOUfitt* ••■*: \4(f(-^s7l %off/r^03 Cornell University Library PR 4262.09 1896 The outcast; a rhyme for the ♦''"e.Wilh il 3 1924 013 445 790 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013445790 THE OUTCAST WORKS WRITTEN & PUBLISHED BY ROBERT BUCHANAN, " The dumb wistful yearning in man to something higher — yearning such as the animal creation showed in the Greek period towards the human — has not as yet found any interpreter equal to Buchanan." — Spectator. " In the great power of appealing to universal humanity lies Buchanan's se- curity. The light of Nature has been his guide, and the human heart his study. He must unquestionably attain an exalted rank among the poets of this century, and produce works which cannot fail to be accepted as incontestably great, and worthy of the world's preservation." — Contemporary Review. 1. THE DEVIL'S CASE: a Bank^Holiday Interlude. With Six Grotesque Illustrations. Just Published. Price 6s. 2. THE CITY OF DREAM. By Robert Buchanan. With Frontispiece and Vignette by Macnab. New Edition. 6s. 3. POETICAL WORKS OP ROBERT BUCHANAN, With a Steel-Plate Portrait engraved by Armifcage. i vol., crown 8vo, 7s, 6d. net. 4. SELECTED POEMS. With Frontispiece by Thomas Dalziel. 6s. 5. THE EARTHQUAKE ; or, Six Days and a Sabbath. 6s. 6. IS BARABBAS A NECESSITY? A Discourse on Pubhshers and Publishing. "With an Emblematic Cover, designed by the Author and Publisher, is. 7. LONDON POEMS, Old and New. Definitive Edition, with a Bibliographical Note, Portrait, and Illustrations. 6s* {Immediately ^ 8. THE WANDERING JEW : A Christmas Carol. New and Cheap Edition, with a New Proem, and Selections from the Daily Chronicle Correspondence. [/« the Press. 9. THE POEMS OP ROBERT BUCHANAN. Library Edition, with Portraits and Illustrations. To be issued in Monthly Volumes. [,Preparing, 10. THE OUTCAST. A Rhyme for the Time. First Cheap Edition. 45. 6d. n. ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES: a Tale of Salt Lake City. First Cheap Edition, with Bibliographical No^e. 2s. 6d. 12. POETICAL PLATS. In One Volume, with a Preface, and Illus- trations. [Preparing. LONDON : ROBERT BUCHANAN, 36, Gerrard Street, Shaftesbury Avenue, W. ' Tall, lithe, and sinewy, marble pale Despite the stings of many a gale, With ebon hair as black as night. Black eyes alive with ominous light, White teeth, and lips of lustrous red. "- -Page 48. THE OUTCAST A RHYME FOR THE TIME ROBERT BUCHANAN Witlt lUttstrstion* ij RUDOLF BLIND, PETER MACNAB, HUME NISBET, ETC FIMST OHEAr EDITION " Poena gaudebis amara NominiB mviBi, tandemque fatetere Icetns, Nee snidum nee Teresiam quemquam esse Deorum." — JlIVBSAT;. " There waa a Ship, quoth he ! " — COLERIDOB. LONDON ROBERT BUCHANAN 36, GEEKARD STREET, SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, W. PS A^ \ ' He heard a rippling laugh, and turning. .' Saw her behind him, swimming too — > Her dusky face upon him yearning ' . Baptized with joy and morning dew ! ' That was the Dawn, the bright beginning. " Of one long day of Love's delight ! ' Happy, unconscious she was sinning, His slave by day, his bride by night, She, with her people's acquiescence, . Said in Love's language, ' I am thine,' A. And happy in her constant presence ' -'. He lived and loved and felt divine ! And ah ! what wonder he was glad. That all his soul grew iridescent, ' 1 Forgot the past so dark and sad, With such a Bride for ever present ? A.' io8 THE OUTCAST. Soft almond eyes of starry splendour, Lips poppy-red, teeth white as pearls, A warm brown cheek sun-tan'd and tender,— The fiicest, nakedest of girls ! Her form from shoulder down to foot Like Cupid's bow a splendid curve, Her flesh as soft as ripen'd fruit Yet quick with quivering pulse and nerve- Her limbs, like those of some fair statue, Perfectly rounded, strong yet slight, Her childish glance, when smiling at you. Alive with luxury of light ! happy he whose head could rest Upon that warm and bounteous breast. And so ecstatically capture Its tropic indolence of rapture ! How darkly, passionately fair She seem'd when, resting by him there Upon a couch of leaves sweet-scented. She smiled without a single care. And took no kiss that she repented. And knew no thought he could not share. And when he wearied with the light Shed on his dazzled soul and sight, StUl as a bird within the nest She saw his dark eyes close in rest ; And lay beside him fondly waiting. Obedient as a happy child. THE FIRST HAVEN. 109 Watching his face, and palpitating Till he awoke again and smiled ! For all her pleasure was to trace The happiness upon his face, To feel his breath flow warmly thro' her. To kiss his hands and draw them to her. And place them on her heart, that he Might feel it leaping happily ! And ever springing from his side, She brought him fruit and dainties sweet. And knelt beside him, happy-eyed To see her Lord and Master eat^— And if he frown'd her face grew very Sad ; if he laugh'd, her face grew merry ; So every shade of his emotion Past to her face and faithful eyes. As shadows of the summer Ocean Answer the changes of the Skies ! A Eose with Dawn's cool dew and savotir Eenew'd at every kiss he gave her, A Blush Eose passionately scented. Serene, unconscious, and contented, She felt soft airs of Heaven bedew her. And drank their sweetness deep into her, Kept Soul and Body, through light and glooming. One Flower for ever freshly blooming ! THE OUTCAST. happy Life ! blissful Pas'sioii ! ' Far from Life's folly and Life's fashion ! Far from the tailor and the hatter ! Far from the clubs and criticasters ! Far from all metaphysic patter, From all cold creeds Of God and Matter, From silly sheep and sillier pastors ! No Parliaments,, to lying given-^ No paupers, and no governing classes — No books, or newspapers, thank Heaven ! And no God Jingo for the inasses ! happy Life, without b, trouble ! Pure and prismatic as a bubble, Fresh as a flower with dewdrops peslrl'd,- Ere naked Truth rose, with a wink, Black from her Well (of printer's ink) Or out of chaos woke the World, ! THE FIRST HA VEN. IV. Pause, Moral Eeader, ere you scold A Bard that seemefcli overbold, And grasp the truth that I who sing Am like my Hero wandering Outlaw'd and lost ! Let me commend you, Moreover, should the theme offend you. To realize that he whose tale I tell was ' damn'd '(right justly too), — Forgetting this, you'll whoUy fail To gain the proper point of view. For your assistance, I'll again Quote from the Note-book, thus translating : " How peaceful, after all the pain Of endless doubting and debating ! How restful, after stormy grief, This quiet of the lotus-leaf ! And yet, and yet ! how Memory flashes Her mirror in my sleepy eyes. While darkly on my drooping lashes The tear-drops linger as they rise ! I mark the Land where I was born. The red-tiled Town beside the sea, — The Mother who awakes at morn THE OUTCAST. And turns to give her kiss — to me / I walk along the sun-brown'd sands, I gather sea-shells in my hands, I run and sport till death of day. Then kneeling by my cot, I pray. . .. Again I am a fisher-lad, I haul the net, I trim the sail, I whistle to the winds, right glad To hear the gathering of the gale. Then sailing homeward tan'd and brown I watch the red lights of the Town Gleam blur'd and moist thro' mist and rain, While down the anchor merrily goes again ! I leap on land, run up the shore. Eager to gain my home once more, And startle with a boy's delight The widow'd Mother waiting there ! Almighty God ! that night, that night ! Ev'n now it chokes me with despair ! For lo, I see the thin white form Stretch'd on the bed in ghastly, rest. The lips clay cold that once were warm. The frail hands folded on the breast — Mother ! my mother ! even now, I bend and kiss thy marble brow, The boy's heart breaks, the salt tears flow, And the great Storm of human Woe Sweeps round the quick and dead ! — Aye me. THE FIRST HA VEN. 1 1 3 That first great grief, the worst of all ! That first despair and agony, To which all later woes seem small ! " Then first I knew Thee, God ! whose breath Is felt in pestilence of Death ! Then first I knew Thee whom men bless And found Thee blind and pitiless ! I knew and lived — for 'twas Thy will Only to torture, not to kill — And so the torn heart heal'd at last. And I survived, but not the same — And ere the sense of sorrow pass'd The life within me broke to flame Of Youth's first love ! — and I forgot The woe which is our mortal lot. Because a maiden's face was fair. Because a maiden's lips were sweet, — She bound me with her golden hair And threw me captive at her feet. Then, the glad wooing ! The new birth Of man and God, of Heaven and Earth, When softly, thro' the shades of night We stole and watch'd the evening star. While faint and distant, flashing white. Waves murmur'd from the harbour bar. How good Thou wast. Almighty One, Blessing my troth, the maiden's vow ! 114 THE OUTCAST. But ere another year was done I curst Thee, as I curse Thee now. For lo, Thine Angel Death past by, With flaming finger touched her breast — Scarce woman yet, too young to die, She sicken'd of a vague unrest, Till on her lips clung day by day The blood-phlegm ever wiped away By the thin kerchief, while she. tried To force the smile that fought with tears- God, hear my curse once more ! — She died,— But stm, across the raging years. Her wan face rises, to proclaim Her Maker's infamy and shame ! " Pass all the rest ! — My Soul knew. then The hourly martyrdom of men. And turn'd in very impotence To books for comfort, gathering thence (For they had taught me how to read) The lies and lusts of every creed. Then, an old Scribe, who loved to pore On pages of forbidden lore, Gave me, for service gently done. The knowledge that I long'd to gain. Good soul ! — he used me like his son, And made me erudite and vain. Four years of this, in Eotterdam, THE FIRST HA VEN. 1 1 5 Combin'd with studies less improving, And I became the thing I am, Worn with much thinking and much loving, For in that City woinen were As bountiful as they were fair. Then, suffering from an accidental Complaint to lovers detrimental, I passed some time, just for variety, 'Mong doctors in the Hospital — Then, tired of land and she-society. Cried ' Curse the women ! one and all ! ' And off again I went, as sailor Before the mast, upon a Whaler. ' Gentleman Phil ' they had me christen'd, For I could curse in French and Greek, And merrily the rascals listen'd When I discoursed, with tongue in cheek. On men and women, God and Matter, And all things wicked and unclean ! Lord, how they loved my learned patter, My blasphemies and jokes obscene ! " Long after, came my Luck. Despairing Of gaining much by pure sea-faring, I join'd some honest men and brothers Who robbed upon the Wet Highway, And being cleverer than the others I gathered gold, as rascals may — Il6 THE OUTCAST. Grown rich, I earn'd their approbation By deeds aeurst they dared not do, And being skill' d in navigation. And of some little education. Became the Captain of the crew. By Heaven and Hell; those days were merry ! We knew no pity, felt no fear, — Devils that played at hey down derry With all that honest men hold dear ! Nor were the smiles of Venus wanting. For many a fat ship was our prize, And many a woman most enchanting Struck her red blush-flag, and sank pantiag Under our fire of amorous eyes. . . . Ah deeds aeurst ! Do I repent ? Perhaps a little, now and then ! But what was God about, who sent Things that were pure and innocent To be the spoil of beast-like men ? " Much in this not too pious vein The crimson leaves o' the Book contain — Much, too, of scenes which would have staggered Jules Verne or Mr Eider Haggard, So full they were of wind and water. Clangour of swords, and general slaughter. But presently we find him pining To slip his fetters and be free, THE FIRST HA VEN. 1 1 7 On beds of amaranth reclining With eyes upon the turquoise sea. " So, as I've said, or just suggested, I, the crass Outcast of the Lord, Seeking salvation (as requested), In that first Haven snugly nested, Was rapidly becoming bored. The Honeymoon, I've always thought. Is a mistake ! I'd tire, I swear. If in the net of Wedlock caught. Of Venus' self, the ever Fair ! No, 'tis the wooing and the winning. Not the long end, but the beginning, That is the joy of Love ! — Mere courting Passes all amorous disporting. And what we crave contains a blessing We never compass in possessing ! Some men, I grant (not damn'd like me) Are arm'd so strong in purity. That wedlock is an endless boon. And life one long-drawn Honeymoon, — And these appease their modest wishes As peacefully as jelly-fishes. And floating flaccid 'neath the sky Tamely increase and multiply. But these are fish-like things, not Lovers, Spawn of the pools, not Ocean-rovers, n8 THE OUTCAST. Lives drifting where the currents choose, Or sunk in matrimonial ooze. Moreover, I who write had sown My wild oats early, and had known All kinds of pleasure, long before My rotten Barque set out from shore. And when the Master of Creation, Or some blind Force, his adumbration. Gave me the chance to find salvation Somewhere on earth, — I steer 'd despairing To this soft Eden in the seas, And nothing hoping, nothing caring. Thought ' Here at least I'll rest at ease ! ' Not to the Cities did I wander, Not to the Schools where pedants ponder. Not to the tents of Civilization, But back, straight back, to nude Creation ! — And here I found the general Mother Beauteous and bounteous, warm and wild. And from her heart, like many another, I drank Life's milk, a happy child. My blessing on her ! Grand and free, Untainted with morality. With but one Law of life and pleasure To render her supremely blest. She gives me all she hath, full measure Of that great Milky Way, her Breast—'- Yet though I linger here, replete THE FIRST HA VEN. 1 19 As any flower with all that's sweet, I often long to be once more A foam-fleck blown from shore to shore ! " A " London " Note — " How faint to-day Seems all, that Eden far away ! Ev'n then that life, such as the pure hope To find at last beyond the sky. Was far removed from life in Europe And all the scandal and the cry Of life in Cities ! — People there Were naked babies sucking corals, Spent blissful days without a care, Had no idea what morals were, And so — were innocent of morals. Since then the Gospel has been spread there. And divers bad complaints been shed there. And Civilization's boisterous busy hum Has quite destroyed that sweet Elysium. Soon, if the natives keep progressing. They'll turn to Scandal for variety, Eeceive the new god Jingo's blessing. Become sesthetic in their dressing. And have their Journals of Society ! " ATwther, ilasphemous and fierce. " Oft, when I think of that fair place, I front the heavens and seek to pierce, THE OUTCAST. God, Thy cloudy hiding-place. Por mark, ev'n there, unseen by me, Thy Deputies, Disease and Death, Were crawling snake-like from the sea To taint pure Nature with their breath. There, tangled in Thy mesh of woes, Tortured and stain'd the Leper rose. And join'd his wail to all the cries That from the host of martyrs rise High as Thy Throne ! Tell me. Thou God, Who, striking Chaos with Thy rod. Creating Heaven, and Earth, and Flood, Praised Thine own work and call'd it ' good,' Tell me, God, if God Thou art. Doth Thy Hand rend the breaking heart In beasts and men, doth it adjust The Hate of Hate, the Lust of Lust, And blotch Thy work. Humanity, With these foul stains of Leprosy ! What art Thou, God, if this be so ? What is the glory Thou dost claim ? — Thy tribute is eternal woe. Thy pride eternal Death and shame ! I toss the gauge to Thee again ! Unfold Thyself, defend Thy plan,— Or own Thy primal work was vain. And let Thy tears descend like rain To attest Thy sin at making Man ! " THE FIRST HAVEN. " We feel too much, we know too little, We gaze behind us and before ; The magic wand of Faith, grown brittle, Breaks in our grasp ; our Dream is o'er ! Wakening at last, we understand The World's no pretty Fairyland, No sunny World with gods above it, Ko happy World with God to love it. But a worn World whose first sweet prayer Is turned to darkness and despair — A World without a God ! — " Mother, We cling to thee with feeble cries, Fight for thy breast with one another, Or wondering watch thy sightless eyes "Upturn'd to Heaven ! — Mother Earth, Still fair and kind as at thy birth. Still tender yet forlorn, as when Out of thy womb the race of men Came crying — with the same sad cry That haunts thee while they droop and die ! Sad as the Sphynx, and blind ' for thmt, Hast look'd once on the Father's face. Hast felt His kiss upon thy brow, Hast quicken'd, too, in His embrace. Till blind with light of Deity THE OUTCAST. That clasp'd thee and was mix'd with thee, Thine eyes for ever ceased to see ; And night by night and day by day Patiently thou dost grope thy way, Clasping thy children, heavenward. In search, of Him who comes no more — Mother ! patient ! evil-star'd ! Who now shall be Thy stay and guard, Ifow that first Dream of Love is o'er ? " Thy children babble of green fields ! Thy youth and maidens, gladly crying, Suck all the sweets that Nature yields. And lie i' the sun, as I am lying ! They learn the raptures of the sense, Break Love's ripe virgin gourd and thence Drink the fresh waters of delight . . . What then ? To-morrow Death and Night Shall find them, or if Death denies The boon which closes weary eyes. Despair more dire than Death shall come To linger o'er their martyrdom ! Mother ! martyred too ! — yet blest To feel the new-born at thy breast. What of thy Dead ? What of the prayers Taught them of old to still' their cares ? THE FIRST HA VEN. 123 What of the promise fondly given Of comfort, and a Father in Heaven ? There is no God ! there is no Father ! And that which clasp'd thee, mother Earth, Was formless, voiceless, monstrous, rather Than gracious and of heavenly birth — The attributes we take from thee Are bright and fair, tho' only clay, — The living force that keeps us free, The joy of Life, the bliss of Day ! What we inherit from the Sire Is formless, passionless, and dim. Deep dread, despair, unrest, desire To climb the heavens and gaze on Him ! Ah, hopeless and etern-al quest ! Ah, Life so sweet ! so fugitive ! Dear Mother, endless sleep is best, But ere we close our eyes in rest We loathe the Power which made us live. " What mercy hast thou, Father ? None, Even for thine own Beloved Son, Who weeping sadly, drinking up The poison of thy hemlock cup. While the rude rocks and clouds were shaken. And even thine angels sobbed in pain. Cried, " Eloi, why am I forsaken ? " 124 THE OUTCAST. And dying, sought thy Face in vain ! . . Eeveal that Tace ! — Uplift thy veil, God, and show thyself, that we Who struggling upward faint and fail May know thy lineaments and Thee ! Thou canst not, for thou art not I — I Have never found in sea or sky One living token that thou art, One semblance of a Father's heart. One look, one touch to attest thy claim To godhead and a Father's name ! " Bright crimson was the blood wherein Those words were written down ! " My sin Falls like a garment to my feet. Naked I front thy Judgment Seat, Veil'd Maker of the World. Thy Word Breath'd on the darkness, and it stirred And lived — for what ? That Man might rise With hopeless heaven-searching eyes. Clothed in Thy likeness ? Thine, 1 — the Form No man hath seen, no man may know, A Phantom riding on the Storm While Earthquake rends the earth below ; While like a hawk that hunts its prey THE FIRST HA VEN. 125 Death, creeping on from plain to plain. Tortures the Human night and day. Wounds what 'twere pitiful to slay, And scatters Pestilence and Pain. I tell thee, one poor human thing, One little suffering lamh, one frail Porm of thy cruel fashioning, Eefutes the Lie which cries ' All Hail Pather Almighty ! ' " Mighty ? No ! Weaker than we who come and go Erect and proud, whose deeds approve A human brotherhood of love. Our love and hate have aims, but thine Are idle bolts at random hurl'd. Impotent, hidden, yet Divine, Brood o'er thy broken-hearted World ! " My last quotation (for the present) Though far less fierce, is still unpleasant : " Pictor Ignotus ! Power Unseen ! Who limn'd this sight whereon I gaze, — The still blue Seas, the arc serene Of yon still Heavens of radiant sheen, I doff my hat and give Thee praise ! 126 THE OUTCAST. Thy skill in painting this green Earth, The forms upright that seem divine. Proclaim Thy most exceeding worth — No technique, Master, equals Thine! Step forward, then, great Unknown, Accept our humble admiration ! — All men of taste will gladly own The excellence of Thy Creation ! A beauteous bit of work like this Whereon I feast mine eyes this morning. All peace, all prettiness, all bliss, Hushes at once all doubt, all scorning. Tell me, Great Master, did'st Thou make This thing for the mere Beauty's sake, Having no other test to measure Thy work, but pure sesthetic pleasure ? If this be so, why do we see Elsewhere, attributed to Thee, So many things which, I opine, Are really coarse and Philistine ? Another question, which concerns The sesthetic spirit. Many hold, However bright and clear it bums, 'Tis selfish, passionless, and cold ; Indifferent to the means whereby It gains the artistic end in view. It broods alone, with cruel eye THE FIRST HA VEN. 127 That keeps the handcraft sure and true. If this be so, and Thou, great Master, art but a craftsman fine, I understand and estimate (At last) Thy process, called " Divine " — Cold to the prayer of human sorrow. Deaf to the sob of human strife. Thou workest grandly, night and morrow. On Thy great Masterpiece of Life ! Por Thine own pleasure is it done, Since Art's delight is in the doing. Thine own enjoyment, slowly won. Is the sole end Thou art pursuing — No dull despairing criticaster Troubles Thee or disturbs Thee, Master ! No thought of human approbation Perturbs Thy rapture of Creation ! No sound of breaking hearts can reach Thee, No touch of tears Thy sense can thrill, Tho' millions praise Thee or beseech Thee, Indifferent Thou labourest still ; Picture on Picture is destroyed. And thrown into the empty void ; World upon world is made, and then Eejected gloomily again ; Life upon life is painted fair. Then tost aside in Art's despair ; 128 THE OUTCAST. And so, with blunders infinite, Thou toilest for Thine own delight ! " And when Thy task is done, when Art Crowns to the full Thy great endeavour, Alone, Unknown, still sit apart, And glory in Thy work for ever ! " — THE FIRST HA VEN. 1 29 There, where eternal Summer lingers, The Isle lay golden 'neath the blue. Save when the Eain's soft tremulous fingers Just touch'd its eyes with cool dark dew,— Or when with sudden thunderous cry The chariots of the clouds went by, And trembling for a little space. The Isle lay down with darken'd face Under the vials of the Storm, Then shook the sparkling drops away And looking upward felt the warm New sunlight gladdening thro' the grey \ Like a child's heart that beats so gladly. So full of joy for Life's own sake, Did not the sudden tears flow madly A moment's space, 'twould surely break, — So did that Land of Summer capture, Just now and then surcease from rapture ! But after storms, the bliss grew finer, And storms indeed were far between, — The days divine, the nights diviner, With peace celestial and serene. From dawn to dark the golden Light Dwelt on green cape and gleaming height, I 130 THE OUTCAST. On yellow sands where the blue Sea Pencil'd in silvern filagree Frail flowers and leaves of frost-white spray- That ever came and flash'd away. Then, the deep nights ! great nights of calm, Full of ambrosial bliss and balm ! Smooth sun-stain'd waves as daylight fled Broke on the reef to foam blood-red, TUl the white Moon arose, and lo ! The foam was powdery silver snow, And slowly, softly, down the night. O'er the smooth black and glistering Sea, The starry urns of crystal Light Were fill'd and emptied momently ! Then in the centre of the glimmer The round Moon ripen'd as she rose. And cover'd with the milk-white shimmer The glassy "Waters took repose ; And round the Isle a murmur deep Of troubled surges half asleep Broke faintlier and faintlier As Midnight took her shadowy throne ; In heaven, on earth, no breath, no stir, Ko sound, save that deep slumb'rous tone ! Wonder of Darkness ! — 'neath its wing All living tilings sank slumbering, Save those glad lovers in delight Clinging and gazing at the sky, THE FIRST HA VEN. 131 While phosphorescent thro' the night Portents of ITature glimmer'd by ! In such dark hours of stillness Love Eeaches her apogee of bliss ; The fountains of the spirit move Upward, and cresting to a kiss Sink earthward sighing — then we seem Creatures of passion and of dream. Ethereal shadowy things whose breath May touch the cheeks of happy Death, Who smile, and sigh for joy, and fall Into deep rest celestial ! Such joy I've had on autumn eves When the Moon shines on slanted sheaves. And thro' the distant farm-house pane The lighted candle flashes red, And darker over field and lane The gloaming of the night is shed. Then, pillow'd on a warm white breast. And gazing into happy eyes. While the faint flush of radiance blest Still came and went on the dark skies, I've felt the dim Earth softly spinning On its smooth axle, while above The bright stars as at Time's beginning Turn'd, in their spheres of Light and Love ; — O joy of Youth ! adumbration 132 THE OUTCAST. Of Hope and ecstasy intense ! When Life's faint stir, Love's first pulsation, Turn to a splendour dazzling sense ! One night like that were more to me, Now I am weary with Earth's ways. Than all a long Eternity Of strident, garish, gladsome days ! Ah, to be young ! ah, once again To drink Youth's wild and wondrous wine ! To quit the pathos and the pain For passionate hours of joy divine ! To feel the breast that comes and goes While fond white arms around me twine, To feel the ripe mouth like a rose Prest close, with kiss on kiss, to mine ! To feel all Nature thus fulfil Her gladness ia that touch of lips. Which cling and cling and cling, and thrill One Soul to the soft finger-tips, — All this, which I can ne'er express, This flush of Youth and Happiness, Methinks is infinitely nicer ' Than being counted good or clever — Than growing every day preciser And finding Love has flown for ever ! For ever ? No ! — Thank God, the power Of Love can move me to this hour ; And tho' my moonlight pranks are over, THE FIRST HA VEN. 133 And those old sheaves are shed like sleet, I'll be a Poet and a Lover Until my heart doth cease to beat ! Yet there are nobler things than pleasure, Diviner things than Plesh can gain, — Insight too deep for joy to measure Comes with supremacy of pain ! — "When kneeling by the Dead and seeing That still white Lily with shut eyes. We feel, stirred to the depths of Being, The pathos of poor human ties. If in that awful trysting place, "We watch, thro' tears that blindly roll. Pale Love and shadowy Death embrace And blend to one eternal Soul, How feeble, of how little worth, Seem all those ecstasies of Earth I Out of corruption and decay Spring -flowers that cannot pass away — Out of a grief transcending tears Springs radiance that redeems our lot, "While faintly on our listening ears Eings the soft music of the spheres, ' Eorget me not ! forget me not ! ' Shall we forget ? Shall Death not be The gauge of our Humanity ? Shall Love and Death, one Soul, one Thought, 134 THE OUTCAST. Not waft US upward as on wings ? Almighty God, our life were nought, Were this dark Miracle ne'er wrought To prove us spiritual things. Dust to the dust — there let it die ! Soul to the Soul — which cannot die ! The dim white Dove of Death is winging O'er Life's great Hood in lonely flight, That sad black leaf of olive bringing To prove a hidden Land of Light ! God, who created Earth and Heaven, Lord of the Dead thy love can save. Thy Bow still comforts the bereaven While Death wings on from wave to wave I Standing 'neath Sorrow's sunless pall We hail a symbol bright and blest. And by that sign know one and all That when these troubled Waters fall Our Ark on Ararat shall rest ! . . . . So the sweet days stole on, and still The Outcast wandered at his will From dream to dream, from bliss to bliss, Glad and unconscious of his doom ; His thought, a smile — ^lais life, a kiss — His breath and being, one perfume ! But even as the Snake once stole THE FIRST HA VEN. I3S Unseen, unguess'd, to Eden's Bowers, Ennui, the Serpent of the Soul, Crept in deep-hid 'neath fruit and flowers ! Slowly the ecstasy intense Fever'd the life of Soul and Sense, And certain of delight the eyes Grew weary of the happy Skies. And looking up into his face. Her only Heaven, the Maid could trace. Ere he himself was yet aware. The filmy clouds of nameless care ! Sometimes he'd sit wrapt deep in thought. His gaze upon the glassy Sea ; Sometimes from sleep his passion-fraught Spirit would wake him suddenly ! Sometimes, on days of summer rain. When gentle storms swept round the land. He paced the shores, and seemed again Upon the wave-tost deck to stand ! And wistful as a hound, that lies Watching its master's face, and tries To share his sorrow or delight. The Maiden mark'd him day and night ! " This is the worst of Joy — the more We bask (he writes) beneath its ray. The sooner is the magic o'er. The quicklier doth it fade away ! THE OUTCAST. Sunshine without a cloud at all Of its own peace begins to pall, And calm too tropic and intense Soon fevers to indifference ! "Whence little rain-clouds, tempests even, Keep Hymen's garden green and growing, And lovers weary of a Heaven Where no rain falls, no wind is blowing ! One sickens of iine weather, tires Of ever-gratified desires. Is bored, although at first enchanted, By having every fancy granted. And ah ! my little Maid, unskUl'd In any art of the coquette. All love, all rapture, sweetly filled With the warm wine her soul distilled. Incapable of fear or fret, Ne'er knew what women more capricious Learn, with long culture for a guide, — That joy is render'd more delicious By being now and then denied. How could a Passion-Flower, aU scent. All bloom, and all abandonment. Appreciate the subtle ways Which wiser modern women show forth ? Such dainty tricks came in with stays. Flounces, and pantalettes, and so forth, — Whence we our Modern Venus see. THE FIRST HA VEN. 137 Not in immortal nudity, But veil'd in beauteous mystery ! But Love in that bright Land abode Almost in mother-nakedness, Pure Nature all her beauties showed Indifferent to the arts of Dress : No Milliner had wander'd thither. Bearing Parisian magic with her : — The skirt's sly folds, the robe's disguises, The pruderies of sUken hose. The roguish petticoat's surprises. The thousand spells that Art devises To veil the secrets of the Eose ! That Child of Sunlight never guess'd How winsome and how fair may be A modern Maiden bravely drest In opalescent modesty ! The scented form that shrinks away At the first look of tenderness. The faltering tongue that murmurs 'nay,' Belying eyes that answer ' yes,' The flying feet a lover chases. The half -withdrawn, half-lingering hand, The breast that heaves 'neath creamy laces Craving yet shrinking from embraces, Were aU unknown ia that sweet Land ! " And so, already, as I've told. 138 THE OUTCAST. The fabled Snake was crawling there. Since he who trod those shores of gold Had 'brought it with him unaware ! — For worldly knowledge and its pride Tainted the man's dark nature thro', And as they wandered side by side, Lonely as Adam and his Bride, Under those skies of Eden's blue. He often watched her in the mood Of modern Bards and Heroes, saying : ' True, she is beautiful and good. As fine a thing of flesh and blood As ever loved or went a-Maying. She recognises, too, completely The privilege of her master Man, And, ever fond and smiling sweetly. Supplies his needs, as Woman can. She is the instrument placed by me To calm, perhaps to purify, me ! And I, of course, in this affair, Fit object of her daily prayer, Am the one person whose salvation God takes into consideration ! / am the Hero — I am clearly The object of His circumspection. And she, although I love her dearly, Is but a means to my perfection.' And so, like other cultivated THE FIRST HA VEN 1.39 Dunces by Folly sublimated, He took that angel's fond and true Homage as if it were his due ! A Hero ! — lie ? Now God confound him, And all such Heroes great or small — The crown of pride with which Love crown'd him Was but a Fool's cap after all ! HO THE OUTCAST. VI. Heroes ? The noblest and the best Are those of whom we never know ; God's Greatest are God's Lowliest, Who move unnoted to their rest Nor build their pride on human woe. Napoleons of Sword or Song, The proud, the radiant, and the strong, The inheritors of Earth, are clay To the slain Saints of every day. The Kings of Action and of Thought, Pass in their pride and leave no sign. But the slain Martyr's flesh is wrought By suffering to Life divine. In the eternal Judge's sight This truth refutes the common lie : What men call Genius hath no right To scorn one single human tie. Come up, ye Poets, and be tried ! Stand up, you shrieking, mouthing throng ! Shall you be spared and justified For a few scraps of selfish song ? By Heaven, the weary world could spare All poets since Creation's day. THE FIRST HA VEN. 141 If one poor human heart's despair, One poor lost Soul's unheeded prayer, Must be the price it hath to pay ! Bury your Homers mountain-deep. Strangle your Shakespeares ere they wake, If they their heritage must keep, If they Parnassus-ward must creep O'er souls they stain and hearts they break. For what is Verse, and what is Fame ? Great reams of paper, much acclaim ! And what are Poets at the best But busy tongues that often bore us ; One noble heart, one loving breast Is worth the whole long-winded chorus ! But hold ! true Poesy keeps ever Great wisdom as its pearl of price ; The sleepless Dream, the long Endeavour, The questioning Thought that resteth never, Demand no living sacrifice. Your Goethe's pyramid was made Of broken hearts and lives betrayed, Wherefore men found it, when complete, A pyramid of Self-conceit. And take your Shelley (tho' I hold The fellow had a harp of gold) : He stained the Soul he had to save The day he turn'd from Harriet's grave. 142 THE OUTCAST. But leave me Burns, and Byron too, — They had their faults, and those not few, And gave the nations much offence By riot and concupiscence. But Love was in the rogues ! they paid Full dearly for the pranks they played, And never, in their wildest revel. Pleaded the privilege, of Fame, Or called on Genius and the Devil To justify their guilt and shame ! Some men, all women, worship Strength : Carlyle did, till experience taught him That even the athlete pays at length The bills that Time and Death have brought him. Eough Thomas loudly preached for long That hero-worship of the Strong, The right of muscle and of sinew To use the weak and crush the small. ' Do something ! show the spirit in you. Work, in God's name ! ' men heard him call. ' Speech, sirs, is silvern — silence gold ! ' He cried aloud with lungs of leather ; Nay, even when wearied out and old He could not keep his tongue in tether. Friedrich, Napoleon, Mirabeau, Danton and Goethe, were his crazes ! They stood like puppets in a row. THE FIRST HA VEN. 143 Tall spectres of a wax-work show, While lustily he shrieked their praises. Meantime the bleeding Christ went by, And heard the acclaim in Cheyne Walk, Heard from the threshold', with a sigh, The creed of Silence proved by Talk, And passing slowly on, footsore. Left on the noisy Prophet's door The mark of Passover, for token A Lamb must die, a life be broken. 'Twas done, and in a little space. Silent at last as in a tomb. The Prophet, tears on his worn face. Sat old and lonely in the gloom. How did his Heroes help him then ? What word had Friedrich, Mirabeau, Napoleon, and the mighty men He glorified with tongue and pen. To assuage the tempest of his woe ? Old Hurricane, I hated thee When, shrieking down Humanity, High as a Dervish thou upleapt, — But in thine hour of agony, I could have kissed thy wounds and wept. The pity ! ah, the pity of it ! WeU, Life is piteous at the best. Tkov, wast most mighty, poor old Prophet, When weakest, saddest, silentest ! 144 THE OUTCAST. Tho' all the gods were dead, and He, The great God, who is One in Three, " Bid ought " (at least in thy opinion. Though thou did'st cry His Name so loud) Though Belial reigned in His dominion And led the many-headed crowd, Yet supernatural Shapes of Fear, Fiend-like or god-like, passed thee by. And Froude, thy Nemesis, was near With watchful biographic eye. Heir to thy weariness and folly, He warm'd thy night-cap, brought thy gruel. Sat by thine arm-chair, melancholy. And fed thy fantasy with fuel. And now across the earth he passes, Babbling of thee and Parson Lot, And serves up tepid for the masses Thy gospel, once so piping hot ; Feeds little strong men with his praise. Just as you fed the strong and great. Bewails the dark degenerate days, The dreadful Democratic craze. The shipwreck of our ancient State ; Longs for another Drake (or gander). Of whom in Eyre he saw some traces, Some rough, swashbuckler, bold commander. To govern the inferior races ; THE FIRST HA VEN. 145 Thro' the colonial seas careering Avers philanthropies are vile, And rests, forlornly pamphleteering. The Peter Patter of Carlyle. Man is most godlike, I af&rm, Not when he seeks to top the skies. And peer, poor evanescent Worm, Into the heavenly Sphynx's eyes, Not when he vainly tries to patter Of Gods and heroes. Mind and Matter, Or cries, with folly sublimated, " Lo, I am first of things created," Or flapping further leaden-bodied Assumes a legislative godhead ; — But when, in tears, he humbly kneeling Prays in the silence of the night. Knows himself blind, and dimly feeling With frail arms upward, craves for Light ! Then, from without or from within, Comes in that solemn silent hour The miracle which turns his sin To hope, to insight, and to power ! Then comes the Voice from far away, Saying — ' My love shall be thy guerdon ! Be of good heart, poor thing of clay. Soon shall I turn thy night to day. And free thy Soul from flesh, its burden ! K 146 THE OUTCAST. He listens, breaks to tears, and. straightway Feels this rough load of bone and brawn Grow lighter, sees a heavenly Gateway Swing on its hinges far withdrawn, EevealiQg gUmpses bright and blest Of good old-fashion'd Eealms of Eest, — The Heaven which all his kin have sighed for. Which bards have dream'd of, martyrs died for. Which Christ the Master postulated. Which every creed hath pictured fhere. Which Death itself hath adumbrated Out of the cloud of Life's despair ! Dear foolish Creed ! sweet Superstition ! Fair childish Dream, now faded wholly ! By men of brains and erudition Despised as ignorance and folly ! Humanity, the wise inform us. Is intellectual, or nought. And Heroes, wondrous and enormous. Have soared to thrones of godlike thought, Attesting that Humanity By its own seed redeemed may be. And that the Titans of each nation May face the Saturn of Creation. For " God"— if there be God at all— Boes nothing (that's the Chelsea teaching !) And to be weak and frail and small. To reach up arms and feebly call THE FIRST HAVEN. 147 On some veil'd Nurse, in blind beseeching, Is just to forfeit altogether The privilege of Adam's seed ! — " No, if in Nature's stormy weather. You'd find a foothold and a creed, A light, a buckler, an example, A sign to swear by (or to swear at). Find out some Hero strong and ample Who on your neck hath strength to trample, Crying, ' Q%i Tneruit palmam ferat ! ' Follow that form the small birds sing to. O'er fields of slain the vultures wing to. While women wail and warriors revel ! Since you can find no God to cling to. Worship some proud heroic Devil ! " . . . Well, to my Tale — for I'm digressing Most damnably, and space is pressing. At times, indeed, despite the curse Of Knowledge in him, my poor Hero, Lord of his own Soul's universe. Yet lone as Lapland, low as zero. Felt childishly beatified. Foolishly pious, tried to gulp a Tear of repentance down, and cried — " Lord of the meek, forgive my pride, mea culpa ! mea culpa ! " 148 THE OUTCAST. Por even a Hero, one who deems Himself the centre of Creation, Who, proud of God's attention, beams With self-approving admiration. Is only clay ! A great philosopher Will often whimper on the sly, And sceptics often try to cross over The Bridge of Prayers that spans the Sky. On moonlight nights, on Sabbath days. When Earth herself lies still and prays Rock'd in the sad Sea's quiv'ring arms. And God's Hand, laid upon her breast. Mid folds of trembling darkness, charms Her fears to momentary rest. All creatures, proud or lowly, share That dusky rapture of despair ! And now the Outcast who had sneer'd At all the schemes of Earth and Heaven, Who fear'd no wrath or tempest, feared The peace, the joy, which God had given ! And gazing in that Maiden's eyes Full of soft love and sad surmise. He saw a starry radiance shine That "Show'd hitn base, and Iwr divine ! Ah, then he could have prayed, and wept, Humble, and low, and spirit-sore — But the mood past, and o'er him crept The cankering curse of pride once more. " Sometimes upon the peaceful Sea They paddled out."— Paj'e 149, THE FIRST HA VEN. 149 Yet those were happy, happy days ! 'Twas Eden, tho' the Snake was there ! Eternal Summer shed its rays O'er these still seas, thro' these green ways, And all was primitive and fair ! Life grew so still and softly sweet The rapturous heart scarce seem'd to beat, And sense and spirit seem'd to swoon To the hot hush of one long Noon ! Sometimes thro' forest paths of green They walk'd, and thro' the leafy sheen O'erhead, beheld the bright skies grow Miraculously white, like snow ; Or to some grotto's shade they came And saw with slimy weeds o'ergrown Some carven god without a name Sit in the chillness all alone. And on her face the little Maid Eell for a space and softly prayed, Then dipt her finger tips into The cool green drops of sunless dew That on the idol dript and fell, And laid them on her lover's brow. And seem'd to say, ' Love, all is well — He gives us both his blessing tww ! ' Sometimes upon the peaceful Sea They paddled ,out in light canoes, And floating softly, silently. ISO THE OUTCAST. O'er deep cool voids of rainbow hues, Saw far below them, far as was The mirror'd heaven as smooth as glass. Thro' soft translucent depths of dream, Down, down, within the clear abysm. Bright creatures of the Ocean gleam And fade, like colours in the prism ; — There, rock'd on crystal waves that were As clear and shadowless as air. They seem'd suspended near the sun Between two Heavens that throb'd as one ! Sometimes they climb'd the peaks, and stood Full in the moonlight's amber flood, And saw the great stars bright as gold Steal breathless from the azure fold, And like strange luminous living things More to their silent pasturings ; And down beneath them, far as gaze Could see into the ocean-ways, Such shapes as in a mirror shone. And softly pasturing too, crept on ! And all around them on the heights Eternity set beacon-lights. And meteors, flashing suddenly. Fell radiant from sky to sea. While sadly as some heart bereaven Throb'd the great luminous Heart of Heaven ! THE FIRST HA VEN. 151 Almighty God, who out of clay rashioned us creatures of a day, Who gave us vision to perceive, And souls to wonder and believe. How calmly, coldly, we behold Thy daily marvels manifold ! Thy "raiment-hem of glory sweeps Across the darkness of the Deeps, And quickens light and life, God, In all it touches, stone or clod — And we . . . things of a day, an hour. Accept the wonder as our dower, And wearying of the splendour, lust For darkening pleasures of the du^t. Tho' thou hast girdled us around With ecstacies of sight and sound, Tho' all without us and within Thy Thought takes form and adumbration, Dark is the answer it doth win From us, the waifs of thy creation ! We cry for Miraclesj and lo ! All Nature is illumed for us ! The sun, the stars, the flowers, the snow. Change at thy touch miraculous — In vain, in vain, the Mystery, We understand not, tho' we see, And like sick children, turning thence, Fret out our little sum of sense ! 152 THE OUTCAST. Yet sometimes to thy touch we quicken A moment, like that Man and Maiden, — And while thy wonders round us thicken We pause and marvel, passion-laden, — Then Lifted in some air divine High o'er this world to yonder Sky, See, where thy constellations shine, The Darkness of thy Face go by ! An instant only ! — could the wonder Last but another, then indeed Our bonds of flesh were torn asunder, And we were purified and freed — But no ! — the thrill celestial Ceases, and down to Earth we faU, And coldly once again survey Thy miracles of Wight and Day ! Back to our lovers ! Could I tell Of all they felt and dream'd and thought. How Love for ever changed the spell That bound their spiiits fever-fraught. How night and day their lives were blent In rapture and abandonment. My song would never end ! — the Hours Flew by like maidens crown'd with flowers, Each like the other dancing on. Till many nights and days were gone. How many — who can tell ? Not I — THE FIRST HA VEN. i S3 For in these passionate relations, We count not Time as it goes by, But measure it by palpitations : At last, we waken, and look back Along the pleasant flowery track By which we've journey'd, and discover The flowers are flown, the leaves are dead ; — So, at least, was it with our Lover, When his long honeymoon was over And the first bloom of Love had fled. And how it would have ended, whether He would have stealthily departed. Or roughly cut the tender tether That held their sunny lives together. And left the maiden broken-hearted, I know not. Pate, the wild Witch-woman Who thwarts the plans of all things human. Came flying to that Isle so sunny With imps of mischief in her train. And changed Love's waning moon of honey Into a baleful star of pain ! 154 THE OUTCAST. VII. Beneath thick boughs of emerald green Turn'd by the sunlight's golden ray To curtains of transparent sheen, They had roam'd, for half a summer's day : Now resting in the dappled shade By silvern fount or bubbling well, Now passing thro' some open glade Where the spent shafts of splendour fell ; But ever as they wander'd on The man look'd dark as one who dreams, With inward-looking eyes that shone To restless melancholy gleams ; And all her loving arts were vain To stir the shadow of this pain ; On passive lips as chill as clay Her kisses fell ; her warm hand lay Fluttering in a hand of stone ; No look of love, no tender tone, Answer'd the sweetness of her own ; Till suddenly the umbrage deep Of those great woodlands stiU as sleep Parted, and grassy heights were gained Sloping to great crags crimson-stain'd, And 'tween the crags, that heavenward rose Crown'd with one solitary palm, THE FIRST HA VEN. 155 The Ocean ! — troublous in repose, Murmurous in folds of summer calm ! Then his eye brighten'd, and with fleet Footsteps he hasten'd on untU, Where the high cliffs and clouds did meet, The white surge far beneath his feet. He paused^ and gladdening drank his fill Of some new rapture. Blithe and bright, To see his gloom had passed away, She join'd him on the lonely height, And, happy as a child at play, Ean gathering ferns and flowers that grew Above the chasm's purple blue Between her, and the rocky shore; — She scarce could hear so far away The breaking billows' ceaseless roar. But saw the line of snowrwhite spray^ Frozen by distance. Then she tum'd. And lo ! his face no longer yearn'd Fondly to hers, but eagerly Bent to the far-off shoreless Sea ! And ah ! the hunger and the thirst Of sleepless wanderers tempest-nurst, The look which wives and mothers fear I' the eyes of those they hold so dear. The rapture which is Love's despair, - .The unrest of Ocean, all were there. 156 THE OUTCAST. Mirror'd in that bright restless gaze Which swept the wondrous watery ways ! She spoke — he smiled ! — and she could read In that strange smile the doom of Love ! No more her own, in dream or deed, Lifted in some wild air above Her hopes and dreams, he felt again The power, the passion, and the pain Of that Eevolt, that mad Surmise, The sleepless Waters symbolize ! But then he looked at her and smiled Again, — and now it seemed once more The smile of Love, tho' wan and wild. Not soft and sunny as before ; And gazing back thro' tender tears She drank the smile, and softly scan'd Her lover's face, while on her ears Feu words she could not understand. ' Close to me, close ! ' he cried aloud, ' Would that this hour, my child, we twain Might mingle, drifting like one cloud Over the xaelancholy Main ! Would that the cup thy love hath brought Might quench the thirst of my despair ! Would that my spirit fever-fraught Might kneel with thine in peaceful prayer ! THE FIRST HA VEN. 157 But no, the golden Dream is done, (0 God, how sweet ! God, how fair ! ) Thy life grows here beneath the sun, Mine is among the Storms, out there ! God bless thee, child — if God there be. His benediction must be thine — But voices yonder from the Sea, Voices of Souls as lost as mine. Still call aloud that He I name Hath still no power to calm or tame The spirit who denies and spurns The peace for which thy nature yearns. The storm-cloud touches with its shower The flower that blossoms sweet and low — But the cloud blends not with the flower, Nor rests in peace where flowers may grow. My child, my child ! Would I had been Pure like thyself and purely tru?. Sure of my dower of Light serene. Sure of the earth from which I grew — But no ! no rest, no joy, contents The outcast Soul, the sleepless WiU — And what the cruel Elements Have mixed in wrath, no Love can still ! ' Even as a child who tries to guess The words she little understands. But kindles into happiness I5& THE OUTCAST. Thro' smile of eyes and clasp of hands, She listened ! then her lips to his Were sealed in a heavenly kiss, And tunning from his side again She gathered flowers and brought them to him. And as he took them, piteous pain, Scornful yet wistful, trembled thro' him. As some bright bird of Paradise, Or some fair fawn-Hke pard, seem'd she. An earthly thiag with elfin eyes, Scarce humanized, yet fond and free ; And lo, he loved her, — as men love Earth and the flowers that blossom thence, The beasts and birds of wood and grove, All happy things that live and move Like apparitions round the sense ; But deep within his troubled breast An alien love, a vague unrest, Stirr'd to a sense of vaster things. Great doubts and dreams, divine desire, — An eagle's thirst to unfold its wings. Upward to fly iu circling rings And front the blinding solar fire ! High o'er the utmost crag there grew The palm-tree, rooted in the rock. Bent by each ocean-blast that blew But firm amidst the tempest's shock, THE FIRST HA VEN. 159 And round its roots, beneath its shade, riowers like our wind-iiower clustering crept, — ■ Thither, swift-footed, unafraid. Laughing, the little Maiden leapt ; TiU down beneath her fairy feet She saw the distant surges beat, — Great birds that look'd like butterflies Hovering white o'er ridged waves. While trumpet-calls and thunder-cries Rose from the distant chasms and caves ; — Then as she gained the lonely tree, And stooped among the flowers, the sound Of air and water suddenly Thunder'd like earthquake all around ! Fearless and happy, white and fair. She paused in pretty wonder there, Then looking back beheld her lover Beckoning with .face as pale as death. ' Come back, come back ! ' he cried, whUe over The gulf she hung with bated breath — Then smiling back to him who yearn'd Beyond her, merrily she turn'd. And kneeling o'er the chasm hung To pluck one fair white flower that clung Beneath her o'er the chasm's gloom. With light quick finger touch'd the bloom, And then . . . Great God, who gav'st us sight, i6o THE OUTCAST. Yet see'st us grope with close-shut eyes, Blind to the blessings of the Light, Dead to the Love that deifies ! Unto how many men each hour Frail little fingers seek to bring Some gentle gift of love, some flower That is the Soid's best offering ? Some happiness which we despise. Some boon we toss aside for ever, — And only that our selfish eyes May smile one moment on the giver ! How many of us count or treasure The little lives that perish thus. To garner us a moment's pleasure, A moment's space to comfort us ? Blind, ever blind, we front the sun And cannot see the angels near us. Forget the tender duties done By willing slaves, to help and cheer us ! Earth and its fulness, all the fair Creations of this heaven and air. All lives which die that we may live. All gifts of service, we pass by. All blessings Love hath power to give We scorn, God, or we deny ! Is there a man beneath the sun, Tho' poor and basest of the base. For whom such duty is not done " A still white form stretoh'd silently On those oold rooks that fringed the Sea ! " — Pcuje 161. THE FIRST HA VEN. 1 6 1 To pleasure him a little space ? A singing bird, a faithful hound, A loving woman, or a child, Contented with our voice's sound Patient in death if we, have smiled, These, these, God, are daily sent To give thine outcasts sacrament. And in so giving themselves attain Thy sacred privilege of pain ! Yet still our eyes turn sunward blindly. And blindly stUl our souls contemn The loving hands that touch us kindly. The lips that kiss our raiment's hem ; And we forget or turn away From flowers that blossom on our way ; Blind to the gentle ministration Of tutelary angels near, We find too late that our salvation Lies near, not far ; — not there, but Iwre ! . Even then, as with her little hand She grasped the flower and sought to rise, The crag's edge crumbled into sand, And fluttering from her lover's eyes She vanished ! — "With a shriek of dread He gained the crag, and pausing there. The great rocks trembling neath his tread. Gazed down — and down — thro' voids of air, L i62 THE OUTCAST. And saw beneath hini, thro' the snow Of flying foam that rose below, A still white form stretch'd silently On those cold rocks that fringed the Sea ! What next did pass, he knew not. When His blinded soul grew clear again. He stood beneath the craggy height Close to the surges flashing white, And, dazzled by the foam and spray, Bsnt o'er that bruised and bleeding Form;- Crush'd on the cruel shore it lay. Silent and still, yet soft and warm ; And as he knelt with tender cries Lifting her gently to his breast. She stir'd and moan'd, — then, opening eyes. With one last smile serene and blest, Brighten'd to see her Master bow Above her, gladly drank his breath, With fluttering fingers smooth'd his brow, Kiss'd him, and closed her eyes in death ! How still it was ! the clouds above Paused quietly and did not move — The waves lay down like lambs — the sound Of crags and waves was hushed all round. ' God, my God ! ' the Outcast said. Kissing the lips still warm and red. While the frail form hung lax and dead. THE FIRST HA VEN, 163 And lo ! there stole upon his ear, Low as his own heart's beat, yet clear, A murmur faint as Sabbath bells Heard far away mid forest dells Buried in leaves and haze, so still And soft it only seems the thrill Of silence thro' the summer air — - A sigh of rapture and of prayer ! And lo ! his dark face seaward turn'd. As in a vision he discerned. Thro' thickly flowing tears, a Form In saffron robes and golden hair. Walking with rosy feet all bare The "Waters slumbering after storm ! A Maiden Shape, her sad blue eyes Soft with the peace of Paradise, She walked the waves ; in her white hand Pure Hlies of the Heavenly Land Hung alabaster white, and all The billows neath her light footfall Heaved glassy still, and round her head An aureole burnt of golden flame. As nearer yet, with radiant tread, Fixing her eyes on his, she came. Then as she paused upon the Sea Gazing upon him silently i'64 ■ THE OUTCAST. With looks insufferably bright '■ And gentle brows beatified, - '■ He knew our Lady of the Light, Mary Madonna, heavenly-eyed ! He look'd — he listen' d. ' Speak ! ' she said, ' By Him who judgeth quick and dead. Art thou content for evermore Here on the lotiis leaf to rest ? Speak ! and thy wanderings are o'er, And sleep is thine — if sleep be best ! Speak ! and this fluttering flower of flesh Shall lift its head and bloom afresh, Guide and companion unto thee Thro' Eden for Eternity ; — She loves thee, as the birds and flowers Love, and all things of sun and shore. Speak ! — and the sunshine and the showers Shall lap thee deep in these bright bowers Eor ever and for evermore.' He answer'd, heaVy-eyed and pale, ' Madonna ! let me journey on ! Better the surges and the gale. Better to sail and sail and sail Before thy wind, Euroclydon. Here have I found delight and joy. Here hath my spirit been renew'd. THE FIRST HA VEN. 165 Yea, with the mad thirst of a boy, ; All Adam burning in my blood, ,, I have drunken of the brimming cup Nature for ever holdeth up. ; • ' ' Nay more, the primal sympathy, The first sweet force which stirs thro' all, Hath quicken'd gentler thoughts in me Than yonder where the Tempests call — Deep pity kindles in my heart For all glad things beneath the Blue, Por her, the brightest and the best. This life of sunlight and of dew ; And yet . . . and yet . . . tho' I can weep Above her, since she loved me so, I would not wake her from her sleep To share my happiness or woe ! Poor child, she knew no thought of pain ! A blossom, born to bloom and kiss. She open'd, then stole back again To Nature's elemental bliss ! Here let her dwell, till Time is done. With all such creatures of the sun — Here let her still remain, a part. Of Nature's warmly beating heart ; — Here, blest and blessing, wrapt up warm In kindling dust, her place shall be, While I return to face the storm Out yonder on the sunless Sea ! " 1 66 THE OtTTCAST. Ev'n as he spake, the air grew dark. Some veil of awe shut out the day, And voices from the Phantom Barque Cried; ' Hillo ! hillo ! come away ! ' Then, while Our Lady's fonn grew dim And vanish'd, with sad eyes on him. He saw beyond the line of surge Breaking upon the lonely strand. The shadow of the Ship emerge And hover darkly close to land. And woeful voices of the Sea Call'd to his soul tumultuously, As kneeling by the Maiden's form He kissed the lips that yet were warm. And in the cold stiU ear that lay ITrail as a little ocean-shell, Once warm with life, then wash'd away, "Whisper'd his passionate " farewell ! " Then, moaning like a death-struck bird. Sprang to his feet, and while he heard The flapping sail, the whistling shroud. The murmuring voices, fill the gloom, ' I come ! I come ! ' he cried aloud. And totter'd to the Ship of Doom. T N T E E L U D E. INTERLUDE. So endeth Song the First ! Long years Ere you and I, my love, were born, Tlie Outcast sail'd away, his ears Full of mad music of the Morn. Once more upon the lonely Main He dree'd his weird of bitter pain, Haunted by dreams where'er he flew Of that sweet Child of sun and dew. But ten years later, and every ten At intervals 'twixt now and then. He landed wearily again And sought- — what still he seeks in vain ! The record tells us of his quest From north to south, from east to west, — Affairs with most delightful ladies Of every clime beneath the sun. From far Cathay to sunny Cadiz, From Ispahan to Patagon, — Of all religions and complexions, Of every shape and every fashion ; He learn'd all phases of affections, — The dark sultana's introspections. The Persian concubine's soft passion ! I70 THE OUTCAST. Thus lightly roaming here and there, Seeking his fate from zone to zone, Betimes he came to Weimar, where Jupiter-Goethe had his throne : This stately Eros in court-breeches Deign'd with our Pilgrim to converse, But bored him hugely with set speeches And pyramids of easy verse, — Of which some solid blocks still stand Amid iSaharas of mere sand. In Germany he spent a year Of wondrous love and strange probation — What of that land of bores and beer He thought, you in good time shall hear. If I survive for the narration. Soon afterwards I find that he Eoam'd southward, into Italy, And standing near St Peter's dome. Was present at the sack of Rome. Thence in due time he wander'd right on To Paris, where, some years ago. He saw the garish lamps flash bright on The Second Empire's feverish Show — A Pair by gaslight — booths resplendent, Bright-tinsel'd players promenading. Street lamps with handsome corpses pendent. Couples beneath them gallopading, Soldiers and journalists saluting. INTERLUDE. 171 Poets and naked harlots dancing, Drums beating, panpipes tootletoofcing. State wizards gravely necromancing ; And in the midst, the lewd and yellow God to whom wooden Joss was fellow, — Enwrapt in purple, painted piebald. Cigar in mouth, lack-lustre-eyeball'd, Imperial CiESAE Punchinello ! But now, alas ! I hesitate. Before I venture forward, dreading My Hero's own unhappy fate, — The peoples' scorn, the critics' hate, For dark's the path my Muse is treading ! And this strange poem is compounded Of mixtures new to modern taste, And Mr Stead may be astounded And think my gentle Muse unchaste. Until we reach. the journey's end, (Finis coronat opus ! ) many May dream I purpose to offend With merest horseplay, like a zany ! Mine is a serious song, however, As you shall see in God's good time. If life should crown my long endeavour. And grant me courage to persdver Thro' this mad maze of rakish rhyme. 172 THE OUTCAST. I who now sing have been for long . The Ishmael of modern Song, — Wild, tatter'd, outcast, dusty, weary, ■ Hated by Jacob and his kin, Driv'n to the desert dark and dreary, A rebel and a Jacobin ; Treated with scorn and much impatience By gentlemanly reputations. And by the critics sober-witted Disliked and boycotted, or pitied. I asked for bread, and got instead of The crust I sought, a curse or stone, — - And so, like greater bards you've read of, I've roamed the wilderness alone. But that's all o'er, since I abandon The ground free Mountain Poets stand on. And kneel to say my catechism Before the arch-priests of Nepotism. Henceforth I shall no more resemble Poor Gulliver when caught in slumber, Swarm'd over, prick'd, put all a tremble, By lUliputians without number. The Saturday Beview in pride Will throne me by great Henley's side. The Daily News sound my Te JJeum Despite the Devil and Athenmmn ; Tho' Watts may triple his innuendoes, And Swinburne shriek in sharp crescendoes. INTERLUDE. 173 The merry Critics all will pat me, • ' ^- The merry Bards bob smiling at me, >■ All Cockneydom with crowns of roses - - • Salute my last apotheosis ! - For (let me whisper in your ear !) Of Criticism I've now no fear, Since, knowing that the press might cavil, I've joined the Critics' Club — the Sa'cile, ! And standing pledged to say things pleasant Of all my friends, from Lang to Besant, With many others, not forgetting Our school-room classic, Stevenson, I look for puffs, and praise, and petting, From my new brethren, every one. A Muse with half an eye and knock-knees Would thrive, thus countenanced by Cocknies ; And mine, tho' tall, and straight, and strong, Blest with a Highland constitution, ■ Has led a hunted life for long Thro' Cockney hate and persecution. And yet — a terror trembles through me, They may blackball, and so undo, me ! In that case I must still continue A Bard that fights for his own hand : Bold Muse, then, strengthen soul and sinew To brave the lilliputian band ! 174 THE OUTCAST, I smile, you see, and crack my jest, Altho' my fate has not been funny ! Storm-tost, and weary, and opprest. The husy Bee has done his best. But gather'd very little honey ! My life has ever been among The drones, in deuced rainy weather, I've hum'd to keep my heart up, sung A song or two of the sweet heather, Nay, I've been merry too, and tried. As now, to put my gloom aside ; But ah ! be sure the mirth 1 wear Is but a mask to hide my care, Since on my soul and on my page Fall shadows of a sunless age, And sadly, faintly, I prolong A broken life with broken song. As Rome was once, when faith was dead, And all the gentle gods were fled. As Eome was, ere on Death's black tree Bloom'd the Blood-rose of Calvary, As Rome was, wrapt in cruel strife By black eclipse of faith and life. So is our world to-day ! — and lo ! A cloud of weariness and woe. Dark presage of the Tempest near. Fills the sad universe with fear. INTERLUDE. 175 And in this darkness of eclipse, When Faith is dumb upon the lips, Hope dead within the heart, I share The Time's black birthright of despair ; Hear the shrill voice that cries aloud ' The gods are fallen and still must fall ! King of the sepulchre and shroud, Death keeps his Witch's Festival ! ' Hark ! on the darkness rings again, Poor human Nature's shriek of pain, Answer'd by cruel sounds that prove The Life of Hate, the Death of Love. Now, since all tender awe hath fled. Not only for tlie gods o'erhead, But for the tutelary, tiny, Gods that our daily paths surround, The kindly, innocent, sunshiny Spirits that mask as ape and hound, — Since neither under nor above him Man reverences the powers that love him, What wonder if, instead of these Who brought him gifts of joy for token, Man looking upward only sees A hideous Spectre of the Brocken, And 'mid his hush of horror, hears The torrent-sound of human tears ? The butcher'd woman's dying shriek, 176 THE OUTCAST. The ribald's laugh, the ruffian's yell, While strong men trample on the weak, Proclaim the reign of Hate and Hell. And in the lazar-halls of Art, And in the shrines of Science, priests Of the new Nescience brood apart, Crying, ' Man's life is as the Beast's ' There is no goodness 'neath the sun — The days of God and gods are done. And o'er the godless Universe Falls the last pessimistic curse ! ' Old friends, with whom in days less dark I roam'd thro' green Bohemia's glades. While ' tirra lirra ' sang the lark And lovers listen'd in the shades. When Life was young and Song was merry, And Morals free, and Manners bold; When poets whistled ' hey-down-derry,' And toU'd for love in lieu of gold. When on the road we trode together Old honest hostels offered cheer. And halting in the sunny weather We gladden'd over pipes and beer, — Where are you hiding now ? and where Is the Bohemia of our playtime ? Where are the heavens that once were fair^ And where the blossoms of the Maytime ? INTERLUDE. 177 The trees are lopt by social sawyers, The grass is gone, the ways asphalted. Stone walls set up by ethic lawyers Eeplace the Stiles o'er which we vaulted ! See ! with rapidity surprising. Thro' jerry-building ministrations, Neat Literary Villas rising To shelter timid reputations ; Each with its garden and its gravel. Its little lawn right trimly shaven. Its owner's name, quite clean, past cavil. Upon a brass plate neatly graven ! And to ! that all mankind may know it, We are respectable or nothing, The Seer, the Painter, and the Poet Must go in fashionable clothing — High jinks, all tumbling ia the hay, All thoughts of pipes and beer, are chidden, The girls who were so glad and gay Must be content in hodden-gray, Nay, merry books must be forbidden. And — tace, signum ! — primly drest Here' come the .VigUance Committee, Condemning Murger and the rest Because they may corrupt the City ! Vie de BoMme /-—Life yearned for yet, En jpantalon, en chemisette — M 178 THE OUTCAST. Life free as STinshine and fresh air, Now gets no heariag anywhere, And o'er a world of knaves and fools The Moral Jerry-builder rules. Moral ? By Heaven, I see beneath That saintly mask, the eyes of Death, The wrinkled cheek, the serpent's skin, The shy Mephistophelian grin ! And where he wanders thro' the land The green grass withers 'neath his tread. While those trim viUas built on sand Crumble around the living-dead. Under the region he controls Sound of a sleeping Earthquake rolls. And at the murmur of his voice The Seven Deadly Sins rejoice ! Meantime, the Jerry Legislator, Throttling all natures broad and breezy. Flaunts in the face of the Creator, The good old-fashioned Heavenly Pater, This gospel — ' Providence Made Easy ! ' Proving all gods but myths and fiction. He treats man's feeble constitution With moral drugs and civic friction, To force the work of Evolution ; Shows ' Eights ' are merely superstition. INTERLUDE. I79 And Freedom simply Laissez faire, And puts a ban and prohibition On Life that once was free as air. Behold the scientific dullard, Cocksure of healing Nature's plight. Turning Thought's prism many-coloured Into one common black and white, Measures our stature, rules our reading. Tells us that he is God's successor, And vows no man of decent breeding "Would seek a wiser Intercessor. For ' Eights ' read ' Mights,' aloud cries he, ' For Thought, Paternal Legislation,' And substitutes for Liberty The pompous Beadles of the Nation. Aye me, when half Man's race is run, The screech-owl Science, which began By flapping blindly in the sun. Huskily croaking, ' Night is done ! Hark to the Chanticleer of Man ! " Now goose-like hops along the street Behind the Priests and Ruling Classes, And fills the air where birds sang sweet With vestry cackle, as it passes ! Ah for the days when I was young. When men were free and songs were sung In old Bohemia's sylvan tongue ! i8t> THE OUTCAST. Ah, for Bohemia long since fled, — The blue sky shining overhead. Men comrades all, all women fair. And Freedom radiant everywhere ! Ah, then the Poet knew indeed A tenderer soul, a softer creed. And saw in every fair one's eyes The light of opening Paradise ; Then, as to lovely forms of fable Old poets yielded genuflection, He knelt to Woman, all unable To throw her corpse upon a table Por calm aesthetical dissection ! Zola, de Goncourt, and the rest. Had not yet woven their witch's spell, Not yet had Art become a pest To poison Love's pellucid weU ! We deem'd our mistresses divine, We pledged them deep in Shakespeare's wine. And in the poorest robes could find A Juliet or a Eosalind ! And when at night beneath the gas We saw our painted sisters pass. We hush'd our hearts like Christian men Eemembering the Magdalen ! Well, now that youth no more is mine, I worship still the Shape Divine, And to the outcast I am ready INTERLUDE. i8i To lift my hat, as to a lady ; But when I hear the modern cry, Mocking the human form and face, And watch the cynic's sensual eye, Blind as his little soul is base. And see the foul miasma creep Destroying all things sweet and fair. What wonder if I sometimes weep And feel the canker of despair ? That mood, thank God, is evanescent, For I'm an optimist at heart. And 'spite the dark and troubled Present See lights that stir the clouds apart ! Eare as the dodo, that strange fowl, (Now quite extinct thro' persecution). Despite the hooting of the owl I still preserve my youth's illusion. Believe in God and Heaven and Love, And turning from Life's sorry sight, Watch starry lattices above Opening upon the waves of Mght, — Find shapes divin'e and ever fair Thronging with radiant faces there, While hands of benediction wave O'er these wild waters of the grave. Et ego in Bohemid fui ! Have known its fountains deep and dewy, i82 THE OUTCAST. Have wander'd where the sun shone mellow On many an honest ragged fellow. And for Bohemia's sake since then Have loved poor brothers of the pen. I've popt at vultures circling skyward, I've made the carrion-hawks a bye-word, But never caused a sigh or sob in The heart of mavis or cock-robin, Nay, many such (let Time attest me ! ) Have fed out of my hand, and blest me ! So when my wayward life is ended, With all my sins that can't be mended, And in my singing rags I lie Face upward to the cruel sky. The small birds, fluttering about me. While birds of prey and ravens flout me. May strew a few loose leaves above The Outcast whom so few could love, — And on my grave in flowsJr-wrought words The Inscription set, that men may view it,- ' He blest the nameless singing birds. Loved the Good Shepherd's flocks and herds, M ille in Bohemid fuit ! ' EPILOGUE. FIDES AMANTIS. TIDES AMANTIS. Dearest and Best ! Light of my way ! Soul of my Soul, whom God hath sent To be my guardian night and day, To make me humbly kneel and pray, When proudest and most turbulent ! Calm of my Life ! dear Angel mine ! Come to me, now I faint and fail, And guide me softly to the Shrine, "Where thro' the deep'ning gloom doth shine Life's bleeding Heart, Love's Holy Grail, Where Soul feels Soul, and Instinct, stirred To Insight, looks Creation thro', And hear me murmur, word by word. The Creed I owe to Heaven and you ! " I do believe in God ; that He Made Heaven and Earth, and you and me ! Nay, I believe in all the host Of Gods, from Jesus down to Joss, But honour best and reverence most That guileless God who bore the Cross. I do believe that this dark scheme. This riddle of our life below. Is solved by Insight and by Dream, And not by aught mere Sense can know ; That the one sacrifice whereby We attest a faith which cannot die, Is the burnt offering we place On Truth's pure Altar day by day, 1 86 THE OUTCAST. Whereby the sensual and the base Within us is consumed away ; That just as far as we forego Our selfish claim to stand oHone, Proving our gladness or our woe Is Humankind's and not our own, So far as for another's sake Our cup of sorrow we accept, And crave, al^ough our hearts should break. The pain supreme of God's Adept, So far shall we attain the height Of Freedom, in the Master's sight. I do believe that our salvation Lies in the little things of life, Not in the pomp and acclamation Of triumph, or in battle-strife, Not on the thrones where men are crown'd, Not in the race where chariots roll. But in the arms that clasp us round And hold us backward from the goal ! In Love, not Pride ; in stooping low. Not soaring blindly at the sun ; In power to feel, not zeal to know ; Not in rewards, but duties done. " Corollary : all gain is base. The Victor's wreath, the Poet's crown, If conquest in the giddy race Means one poor struggler' trampled down, If he who gains the sunless throne Of Pame, sits silent and alone, Without Humanity to share His happiness, or his despair ! " This Gospel I uphold, the one The latter Adam comes to prove : FIDES AMANTIS. 187 To every Soul beneath the sun Wide open lies a Heaven of Love ; But none, however free from sin, However cloth'd in pomp and pride, However fair, may enter in, Without some Witness at his side, To attest before the Judge and King Vicarious love and suflFering. Who stands alone, shall surely fall ! Who folds the falling to his breast Stands sure and firm in spite of all. While angel-choirs proclaim him blest." Dearest and Best ! Soul of my Soul ! Life of my Life, kneel here with me I Pray while the Storms around us roll, That God may keep us frail, yet free ! Be Love our strength ! be God our goal ! Amen, et Benedidte ! LETTER DEDICATORY C. W. S. A LETTEE DEDICATOEY TO C. W. S., IN WESTERN AMERICA. Dear Feiend, — Though I have never shaken your hand, or looked into your eyes, I know you weU and love in you one of the brightest spirits of the time, a true Soul-fellow whom sooner or later, in this world or another, I am sure to meet. I knew you first when, among the sunless Hebrides, I read your beautiful descriptions of solitudes far away. Then your letters came, with their royal greeting as of king to king, and brought further hostages of your intellectual sovereignty. What you have tpld me of yourself, of your dreams and sorrows, of your struggles and adventures, of the world's indifierence to you and your indifference to the world, is only fresh corroboration of the goodness and wisdom I discovered in your writings, — fresh bright spirits of personality well worthy of the land of Whitman and Thoreau. You ask me to respond with particulars concerning myself. I cheerfully do so, though in the little I have to tell you will find only an adumbration of your own experience. You are lonely in the great solitude. I am lonelier still in the great world. We both preserve our illusions, — both are children in a period when men grow prematurely old. But you have been spared persecution, misunderstanding, misconception. You have had your share of the lotus. My life has been a weary fight for bread. I began with high hopes and noble dreams. At nineteen years of age, after having been educated in independence, I was tost out on the stormy sea of Literature, where I have been busy ever since, beating this way and that, often almost sunk by authorized gunboats or piratical dhows, and never finding a fair wind to waft me to the Tortunate Isles. I have since had the usual experience of original men, — my worst work has been received with more or '92 TSE OUTCAST. less toleration, and my best work misunderstood or neglected ; while the self-authorized critical Pilots, who haunt the shallows of journalism, have agreed that I am a factious and opinionated Mariner, doomed like my own Dutchman to eternal damnation, because like my prototype I have once or twice been provoked to violent language. Tor nearly a generation I have suffered a con- stant literary persecution. Even the good Sainaritans have passed me by. Yet I survive as you know, and may even call myself contented, hating no man, fearing no man, envying no man. Few men, however, have had to struggle harder even for the merest food and air. I am now, at the half-way House of Life, as great a simpleton in the ways of the world as ever. I do not even know if I have failed or succeeded, nor indeed do I care ; I only know that some of my failures are pleasanter to remember than what some men call my "successes." I have sought only one thing in life, — the solution of its Divine meaning ; and sometimes I think I have found it. But in an age when the gigman assures us there are no Gods, and in the strength of that assurance becomes a minister of a God-respecting cabinet, when to believe in anything but hand- to-month Science and dish-and-all-swaUowing Politics is a sign of intellectual decrepitude, when a man cannot start better than by believing that all Humanity's previous starts have been blunders, I would rather go back to De Balsac and swear by Godhead and the Monarchy, than drift about with nothing to swear by at all. And absolutely, I don't know whether there are Gods or not. I know only that there is Love, and lofty Hope, and Divine Com- passion, and that if these are delusions, you and I and all of us are no better than infusoria. If this is the only life I am to live, the Devil help me ! — for if the Gods cannot, the Devil rwuM. You inquire, with very natural curiosity, about the leading litterateurs of England. My knowledge of them is of the slightest, and I know only a few who appear to take life in earnest. Our literature has run to seed in journalism. Our poets are respectable gentlemen, who have a holy horror of martyrdom . Our novels are written for young ladies' seminaries ; our men of science are fashionable physicians, printing their feeble philosophical pre- LETTER DEDICATORY. 193 scriptions in the Eeviews, and taking large fees for showing the poor patient, Man, that his disease is incurable. Even Herbert Spencer has sometimes drifted into this sort of empiricism. You would find London, if you ever came to it, about the most foolish place in the Universe, and furthermore, a Pandemonium of printers' devils. For myself, I have found infinitely more wisdom in Paisley or Kilmarnock. I know no sight sadder than a success- ful literary man, except perhaps a successful painter or musician. A very little prosperity can turn a fine human soul into a mere machine for reading and writing, eating and drinking. Often, when I feel this danger, I wish to God I had never been taught to write and read. You must not gather from this that I am in revolt against my fellow- workers ; on the contrary, I love the inky fellows immensely, when they are not spoiled by prosperity. And frankly, I myself have not escaped the charge of selling my birthright for a mess of pottage ; of gaining my bread by hodman's labour, when I might have been sitting empty-stomached on Parnassus. Yes, I of all men ; I who after ten years of solitude should have gone mad if I had not rushed back into the thick of life, yet who, even there, have been haunted by the ghosts of the solitude left behind, and have never bowed my head to any idol or cared for any recompense but the love of men. My errors, however, have arisen from excess of human sympathy, from ardour of human activity, rather than from any great love for the loaves and fishes; Lacking the pride of intellect, I have by superabundant activity tried to prove myself a man among men, not a mere litt^ateur. Moreover, I have never yet discovered in myself, or in any man, any gift which entitles me to despise the meanest of my fellows. So I have stooped to hodman's work occasionally, mainly because I cannot pose in the godlike manner of your lotus-eaters. I have not humoured my reputation. I have thought no work undignified which did not convert me into a Specialist or a Prig. I have written for all men and in all moods. But the birthright which belongs to all Poets has never been offered by me in any market, and my manhood has never been stained by any sham hate or sham affection. N 194 THE OUTCAST. With all this, I have for nearly a quarter of a century been beating the air. I have been thinking of the Gods, in days when the Temples of the Gods are roofless and untenanted ; I have been yearning to the Heavens, which are empty above me ; I have been crying to God for a sign, and the only sign I have seen is the universal Cross of Sorrow. With a heart overflowing with love, I have gathered to myself only hate and misconception, — and all this for one reason only, that I have endeavoured to avoid self- worship, and to find some slight foothold of human truth. I have been reproached, bitterly reproached, for writing stage plays J for I may tell you that there is a superstition here, among our literary cicerones, that the Drama is in a bad way. You, however, wiU understand me when I say that play-writing has been to me a source of very great help and happiness ; that it has taken me from the solitudes where I nearly died, and cured me, by its practical necessities, of much literary egotism. I was not brought up to carpentering or any honest trade, so I learned, as far as my powers would allow me, the trade of play-writing. Even my enemies admit that I have some coarse skill in that way, and mi resie, it has brought me bread. Do not conceive from these words that I despise the craft. It is a good and fitting one, bracing to an intellect too much given to dreaming and introspection, and it has thrown me into close collision with my fellow-men. I have always loved the stage and players : simple folk, these, grown-up children, babbling of Bohemia and green fields, of Bardolph and the tavern. Yet even here, as I have said, I have given much offence, — for the literary Prig of this generation despises the thinker who is not a dullard, a prosaist, and a hypocrite. Knowing this, some of the craftsmen and journeymen around me take them- selves and their craft very seriously, write art with a capital " A,' and so befool the foolish ones. Which brings me, by the way, to a subject of deep personal interest to all who, like yourself, look upon this Babylon with eyes, of envy. Elsewhere, in a book which I shall shortly send you,* I have touched in plain prose op certain curious phenomena of the Hour,— among others, on beneficent legislation and political trades- * " The Coining Terror, and other Essays.'" LETTER DEDICATORY. 195 union. For some years past, moreover, a solemn league and cove- nant has been entered into by journalists, to coerce, intimidate, and silence all non-union men, — id est, all men who revolt against the hideous multiplicity of Cockney scandal, literary tittle-tattle, Podsnapian criticism, and noisy playing on the French horn. When in America, I noticed in your newspapers a curious pheno- menon, — a secret hatred and suspicion of all original men who, by genius or fortune, had risen from the ranks, and the want of reverence reached its acme when some of your newspapers printed woodcuts, reproduced by photography, of the cancer-cells then destroying the life of a great man who " had done the State some service '' — General Grant. Here the same feeling is rapidly spreading. Every man who writes a book, or who becomes other- wise prominent, is under newspaper espionage. Swarms of busy bodies live on him, follow him, and even when they praise, insult him. He is the prey of a plague of hornets. If he resents the persecution, the whole trades-union of journalism is down upon him. By only one thing is he saved, — the multiplicity of his an- tagonists, who destroy each other. Woe to him if he speaks his true mind on any subject ! Woe to him if he believes in anything beyond the common judgment of the hour ! As I write these lines, they are bringing over the body of a great Poet (whom I knew well in the flesh) to bury it in West- minster Abbey, — a sacred place, I may explain, where we place a few of our master-thinkers among hecatombs of mediocrities. Robert Browning is to lie, to his and our glory, by the side of that estimable and once prosperous versifier, Abraham Cowley. The life of the modern Poet was darkened by constant neglect and infinite detraction. If it had not been for the efi'orts of a small body of devoted worshippers, who preached Browningese in spite of endless ridicule, he would scarcely have been heard of by the great public. Again and again, when he was issuing his works of thought and imagination, he was informed that it was a Poet's duty not to instruct, but to amuse, his generation. A leading critical authority compared him to a noisy and mannered " Auc- tioneer." He was requested to favour the world with light per- formances, suitable for the suburban reciter and drawing-room 196 THE OUTCAST. entertainer. Since he was an eager man among men, en rapport with everything human, he was described as a worldling and a diner-out. Suddenly, on his death, the newspapers discovered that he was a sublime person, a great person. Column upon column was written in his praise by gentlemen who had scarcely read one of his works. " He was great," was the cry ; " bury him at Westminster." And scarcely was he cold when it was deeply regretted that he missed wearing the Laurel, still worn, we poets thank God, by the Galahad of modern Poesy. How many re- flected that in this last case, for a miracle, it was the Poet who digni&ed the Laurel, not the Laurel which dignified the Poet. That same Laurel had been worn, and will be worn again, by triumphant mediocrity. It is for the moment a sacred thing, because two true Poets have condescended to it, but in all sane men's eyes it is in itself a shabby and a barren honour, a dreary and discredited inheritance. The World, which now and again in fits of post mortem enthu- siasm professes to respect Poets, insults them daily and hourly by shameful comparisons. This Poet is greater than that, forsooth, and that Poet sings more prettily than this. For not even yet does the world know what a Poet is, as distinguished from a poet- laureate or a poetaster. Between Poets there can be no comparisons, because all are equal by right of birth and equality of vision. Among them, the Seers of humanity, there is neither rank nor competition. The only honour they seek is the love and sympathy of the few who understand them, and to whom they minister in secret joy. Forgetful also of what Poetry itself is, we have from generation to generation suffered the rankest weeds to grow upon Parnassus. Two-thirds of our native poetic growth from Euphues downwards is mere verbiage, and of late years verbiage has blossomed with the amazing splendour of a sun-flower. Hence it is that, to nine- tenths of the few people who read Verse at all, the Poet is a voluble person with nothing to say, who charms the ear with popular tunes, in the manner of Mrs Shaw the whistling lady. It is particularly stipulated that a Poet must on no account be tedious in the sense of possessing any ideas, and if such ideas as LETTER DEDICATORY. 197 he does possess ane not in harmony with the social status quo, woe to him ! Otherwise, a Singer's success is estimated by the number of foolish people who quote his catch lines and whistle his tunes. But the change is at hand. I have waited twenty years for it to come, but it comes at last. Poetry, which alone has resisted the genius of the age, which has continued retrograde while all other Arts advanced, will move to its due place amoug those agencies which influence the Life of Man. It will not leave the prose romancist and the story-teller to deal with the facts of existence. It will forget the tales pf Troy and Eden, and sing the pity of Humanity instead of the wrath of Achilles. Pray do not misunderstand me. I am not echoing the cry, heard now in Europe from Moscow to Paris, from Paris to London, that Literature must be only an " indecent photograph " of Life. I am not approving that banal Fiction and Drama which deals only with the stomach-aches, the stranguries, and the ovarian ailments of unhealthy types of humanity. An exhausted breed of men and women has produced an exhausted Literature, and the Ansemic Book faces us everywhere. Therein, however, is not Life, but Death. In England as elsewhere, impotent writers, hating the very thought of Health and Humour, have \)e^\x poisoning the Wells. What literature wants now is not more prurient self-analysis, but less. How another Eabelais, another Fielding, another Byron, might refresh the world ! Sheer rampant animalism, comic devilry, coarseness of speech and phrase, would be better far than the intellectual self-pollution which is now so fashionable. Better to do something Titanic in even wickedness, than to remain miserable half-born creatures, analysing our own nasty little sensa- tions, and thinking them Titanic ! Why all this " pother " about our moral secretions? Why all this fear of honest natural functions 1 Why all this fumbling and fibbing between the sexes ? Is it because we have lost the Gods, and having nothing to gaze up to, must fain feast our downcast eyes on the centre umbilical, whence radiate all these foul ecstasies and visions ? O for one glimpse of honest Adam and Eve, naked but unashamed ! O for one large breath of Gargantua, — nay, even for one rash witticism of Panurge ! 198 THE OUTCAST. But I am digressing into criticism, when my purpose was merely a personal explanation. I have said enough, however, to shew you that the barren honour of popularity is not tor me, and though I do not contend for a moment that to be unpopular is a personal merit, it is certain that freedom of poetic thought is seldom compatible with literary comfort. If I were to find a fault with some of the really fine and prosperous Poets of our period, it would be this — that their prosperity has resulted less from their totality of merit than through their sympathy with the social and political environment. For example, it is to me individually an inconceivable thing that any Poet should approve the contemporary standards of Christianity, or write political pseans in favour of the most monstrous of human accomplishments, that of War. It is equally inconceivable to me that any Poet should desert even the worship of Priapus for that of St Jingo, or hail with rapture the existence of institutions which are based on hereditary wrong- doing, and on the sacrifice of our nation or class of human beings to another class or nation. A Poet, to my thinking, is a Prophet and a Propagandist, or nothing ; and to be a Propagandist or a Poet, is to be cursed in the market place, not crowned in the forum. Fortunately, the best of our singers have been so cursed, not so crowned. But there must be some strange confusion of thought, or some insincerity of expression, in a writer who, like Carlyle, " writes God large " all over his books, and at the same time tells his Boswell that " God does nothing "—in other words, that there is no God at all. I well remember the amazement and concern of the late Mr Browning when I informed him, on one occasion, that he was an advocate of Christian Theology, nay an essentially Christian teacher and preacher. In the very face of Mr Brown- ing's masterly books, which certainly support the opinion then advanced, I hereby aflSrm and attest that the writer regarded that expression of opinion as an impeachment and a slight. I there- fore put the question categorically, "Are you not, then, a Christian ? " He immediately thundered, " No ! " Which brings me by natural transition to the last point of controversy in which I shall touch in this letter. The insincerity of modern society, the desire for compromise, in matters of re- LETTER DEDICATORY. 199 ligion, has penetrated even to the Thinkers. Perhaps, of all living publicists, the only one who has uttered his thought openly and fearlessly is Mr Eradlaugh, the politician. I do not sympathise with that thought, and I am glad to suspect that maturity has modified it very considerably, but it was honest thought, ex- pressed in a vocabulary that could not be mistaken. Among poets the late James Thomson, a belated and unfortunate singer, and the late Eichard Jefiferies, a poet in prose, suffered cruel neglect and persecution for a similar kind of honesty. Better, surely, such sincerity than any compromise, however expedient. For a Poet to join the herd of hollow hearts, the mob of publicists and politicians, who worship in the shrines they believe to be empty of all godhead, is a thing too horrible for contemplation. I, for my part, who was nourished on the husks of Socialism and the chill water of Infidelity, who was born in Robert Owen's New Moral World, and who scarcely heard even the name of God till at ten years of age I went to godly Scotland, have been God-in- toxicated ever since I first saw the Mountains and the Sea. Without the sanction of the Supernatural, the certainty of the Superhuman, Life to me is nothing. Yet do I not know, am I not told on every hand, that all the Gods are dead, and is it not certain that the last Poets are following the last Gods ? Science is paralysing literature, and the specialists of Pessimism are verifying Schopenhauer in the dissecting-rooms and the lupa- nars. One of our judges, and a good judge too, loudly proclaims that Religion is inexpedient, and that this world, so long as it lasts, is all-sufficient. One of our scientists, eager to sustain the institutions of property, avers that Force and Theft are con- doned by the lapse of years, and even necessitated by the natural inequality of men. Absolute ethics of any kind is ridiculed, not only in politics, but in all the concerns of life. Yet Herbert Spencer is speaking, to a world which will not listen. In the face of all this, we belated Poets, mad and heartbroken at the death of our ideals, are asked to strum the guitar, to " amuse " our generation. Ah, well, it will soon be over ! Happily, the puzzle of this life does not last for long. Meantime, perhaps, I have convinced THE OUTCAST. you that London is only Babylon under a new name. If you ever come to it, I know you will not linger. But whether you come or come not, let us share this secret between us — that though the Gods may be dead as men say, their wraiths still haunt the earth. Even here, in this Babylon, this London, they walk nightly and fulfil their ghostly ministrations. Fan flits through the darkness of Whiteohapel, under the cupola of St Paul's I have seen Apollo face to face, Aphrodite has pillowed my head upon her naked breast, and as for the weary world-worn God of Galilee, he is everywhere, still pleading for us, still wondering that his Father shuts himself away. "Was not our Elder Brother out yonder on the Pacific with Father Damien, and is he not here incarnate wherever the bread of charity is broken ? The last word of the Soul is not yet saidl When it is uttered, in the midst of this Bekhazzar's Feast of modern Culture, both Gods and Poets will live again. Meantime, they haunt the dark hours of sorrow and of insight, and whisper " Wait ! " One last word, concerning the poem which I now send you. It is, as you will see, incomplete, but in itself comprehensible. I -will wager yon, however, the whole set of Chambers' English Poets to one of your far more precious letters, that this book is either universally boycotted or torn into shreds ; that its purpose is misunderstood, and that above all, it is impeached on the ground of its " morality." Yet it is a live thing, part of the very seed of my living Soul. I would read every line of it to the woman I loved, to her whose purity was most sacred to me, and I would accept her judgment upon it, knowing that she would tell me, " This book is pure, and page after page of it is written in your own blood." And so I toss it to the birds of prey, even while I dedicate it, with my love and friendship, to you, one of the few who will understand it. It is only the beginning ; the record of what every modern man has known, or mmt know. The rest will follow, I hope, in due time ; and the end, perhaps, may even jastify the beginning. ROBERT BUCHANAN. TUitNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.